Learn all about the life of the 44th President of the United States in this updated biography of Barack Obama, specially written for a younger audience. University Professor. Nobel Peace Prize Winner. First African American President of the United States. President Obama was born on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. With relatives in Kenya, Ireland, Indonesia, and Kansas, President Obama has referred to his family as “a mini–United Nations.” He attended college on both coasts, first at Occidental in California, then at Columbia in New York City. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he practiced and taught law in Chicago. In 2005 Barack started his political career when he became the senator for Illinois. President Obama was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. His many efforts in the first 100 days of his presidency earned him a Nobel Peace Prize and, in 2012, he was reelected for a second term. Originally published in 2012, this revised biography of the 44th President of the United States includes eight pages of photos as well as a timeline and index. Beatrice Gormley has written a number of books for young readers, including several titles in the History’s All-Stars series, as well as biographies of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Laura Bush, and John McCain. She lives in Westport, Massachusetts. Barack Obama CHAPTER 1 BARACK OBAMA JR. ON AUGUST 4, 1961, A baby boy was born at kapi?‘olani Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii. He weighed eight pounds, two ounces. His parents, Ann and Barack, named him after his father, Barack Hussein Obama, but they called their child “Barry.” Barack Obama Sr. was a foreign exchange student from Kenya, a country in east-central Africa. He was twenty-five years old, studying on a scholarship at the University of Hawaii. He was the very first African student at the school. Barack was tall and charming, with a voice “like black velvet,” as his mother-in-law Madelyn Dunham described it, “with a British accent.” He had come from a poor family, herding goats as a boy. His father, of the Luo tribe, had been a domestic servant for the British colonials. Now Kenya was on the brink of gaining independence from Britain. Barack was determined to accomplish great things, both for himself and for his country. It was a great honor for a youth from his humble background to study at American schools and earn an advanced degree in economics. But he also had a heavy responsibility to his people, and he intended to return to Kenya and help lead the country into a brighter future. Ann Dunham was an eighteen-year-old freshman at the University of Hawaii in 1960 when she met Barack in a Russian class. A quiet but independent-minded girl, she had dark curly hair and dark eyebrows like her father’s. She read serious books about reforming society, and she eagerly spent hours in long, earnest discussions with her friends. Ann lived with her parents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, in a rambling house near the university campus. Stanley was a furniture salesman, while Madelyn worked for a bank. Both Stanley and Madelyn had grown up in Kansas, but after they married, they lived in several states before settling in Hawaii. When Ann first brought Barack home for dinner, her parents, especially Madelyn, were uneasy. They had never met anyone from Africa before. But Barack quickly won them over with his charm, and they were impressed with his brilliant mind and his confidence. However, the Dunhams were unpleasantly surprised in February 1961, when Ann and Barack eloped to the island of Maui and came back married. Stanley and Madelyn were disappointed that Ann, so bright and inquisitive of mind, was dropping out of college after only one semester. Madelyn also feared that the cultural differences between their American daughter and this African young man were too great. Barack’s father, Hussein Onyango Obama, who lived in Kenya, was also surprised and very upset at the news. He threatened to get Barack’s travel visa canceled, so he’d have to return to Kenya. He pointed out that Barack already had family responsibilities: a wife and two children in Kenya. Also, he warned his son, an American wife wasn’t likely to be understanding about the Kenyan custom of a man having more than one family. Furthermore, Onyango wrote Stanley Dunham a long, angry letter. As Barry’s mother told him years later, Barack’s father “didn’t want the Obama blood sullied by a white woman.” Barack refused to obey his father, and the Dunhams accepted their daughter’s choice. For two years Barack and Ann lived with their baby in a small white house near the university campus. Then in 1963, Barack graduated from the University of Hawaii and won a scholarship to study economics at Harvard University in Massachusetts. The scholarship didn’t allow enough money to bring Ann and their son with him, but Barack felt he couldn’t pass up the chance to study at such a prestigious university. In the end, he left Hawaii for Ma